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Thinking maybe bats of fiberglass insulation that I can secure in place with chicken wire since the building is already built. Either way I'll have to find an insulation that will not ignite from grinder sparks.

I like fiberglass insulation but I hate chicken wire(just a personal bias) I don't know your weather, I'm way north of you, but for here I would either use heavy gypsum board with fire resistant paint or roofing tin and always a vapour barrier.
Humidity is a big problem here particularly since my shop is mostly unheated. When we get warm days in the winter everything in the shop is literally soaking wet and if it ain't painted it rusts and most of it ain't painted. I suppose you could always build an insulated box to throw over the welder and stick an incandescent bulb or two in the box at the floor level. Kind of like the old refrigerator idea of nfinch86. If you did that you probably should control them with a electric baseboard heater thermostat so nothing gets cooked.

I like fiberglass insulation but I hate chicken wire(just a personal bias) I don't know your weather, I'm way north of you, but for here I would either use heavy gypsum board with fire resistant paint or roofing tin and always a vapour barrier.
Humidity is a big problem here particularly since my shop is mostly unheated. When we get warm days in the winter everything in the shop is literally soaking wet and if it ain't painted it rusts and most of it ain't painted. I suppose you could always build an insulated box to throw over the welder and stick an incandescent bulb or two in the box at the floor level. Kind of like the old refrigerator idea of nfinch86. If you did that you probably should control them with a electric baseboard heater thermostat so nothing gets cooked.

You know of an easy to hang alternative to chicken wire? Why your dislike for it? I'm not sure of what would best since I'm trying to insulate an already built building.

Do you think I would need something other than bats of fiberglass insulation? I've never messed with insulating anything, so not sure when a vapor barrier would be needed. Anything would be better than nothing right now.

Want to be sure I don't install something that will pose a fire hazard. When I get the building and contents added on the insurance, don't want it to shoot up the rate due to choice of insulation materials.

I don't know what you are meaning by saying already built building but if you have open stud bays the best route is to just use paper backed bat insulation and staple to the studs. You have to cover the insulation with something, most use drywall, due to the paper backing being very flammable. The backing is impregnated with tar, which provides the vapor barrier. The drywall must be fire taped at the minimum to be truly fire resistant.

I don't know what you are meaning by saying already built building but if you have open stud bays the best route is to just use paper backed bat insulation and staple to the studs. You have to cover the insulation with something, most use drywall, due to the paper backing being very flammable. The backing is impregnated with tar, which provides the vapor barrier. The drywall must be fire taped at the minimum to be truly fire resistant.

Maybe a picture of your wall would put us all on rhe same page. If I understand your description you have the inside flange of the C at the inside limit of your wall. If that is the case and I wanted to remain wood free(good idea if you can do it) I would use the fiberglass bats, a foil vapor barrier, and then cover with corrugated roofing tin screwed to the inside of the building frame, horizontal if necessary.

The reason for the vapor barrier is that any moisture in the air inside (includung your exhaled breath) will migrate out of the building partly though the wall unless there is a airtight barrier. When the warm moist air reaches its dewpoint the moisture will condense. Here it is cold in the winter(sometimes also in the spring and fall and occasionally in the summer). The real world result of this is that the air migrating though the insulation(and it will without a vapor barrier) will reach its dewpoint somewhere in your insulation and the moisture will condense there. Eventually you will have soggy insulation which will lower the R factor and maybe worse promote rot in a wooden frame and in your case rust in your building frame.

My dislike of chicken wire is related to my early experience with it and not relevant to your situation. That aside I still would not use it in the fashion you indicated. You are going to lack the vapor barrier and the insulation is going to get contaminated with smoke, dust, grinding particles and who knows what else. Much of that is likely to lower the R value and render your walls almost impossible to clean except by removing the insulation and replacing it with new stuff.

There are probably fire ratings and cautions online for various types of insulation which you should check and take a small piece of it and put a torch to it to see if you can get it to burn as a low tech test. Do so in a well ventilated area or better still a fume hood as some types of insulation give off poisonous gas when on fire.

Maybe a picture of your wall would put us all on rhe same page. If I understand your description you have the inside flange of the C at the inside limit of your wall. If that is the case and I wanted to remain wood free(good idea if you can do it) I would use the fiberglass bats, a foil vapor barrier, and then cover with corrugated roofing tin screwed to the inside of the building frame, horizontal if necessary.

The reason for the vapor barrier is that any moisture in the air inside (includung your exhaled breath) will migrate out of the building partly though the wall unless there is a airtight barrier. When the warm moist air reaches its dewpoint the moisture will condense. Here it is cold in the winter(sometimes also in the spring and fall and occasionally in the summer). The real world result of this is that the air migrating though the insulation(and it will without a vapor barrier) will reach its dewpoint somewhere in your insulation and the moisture will condense there. Eventually you will have soggy insulation which will lower the R factor and maybe worse promote rot in a wooden frame and in your case rust in your building frame.

My dislike of chicken wire is related to my early experience with it and not relevant to your situation. That aside I still would not use it in the fashion you indicated. You are going to lack the vapor barrier and the insulation is going to get contaminated with smoke, dust, grinding particles and who knows what else. Much of that is likely to lower the R value and render your walls almost impossible to clean except by removing the insulation and replacing it with new stuff.

There are probably fire ratings and cautions online for various types of insulation which you should check and take a small piece of it and put a torch to it to see if you can get it to burn as a low tech test. Do so in a well ventilated area or better still a fume hood as some types of insulation give off poisonous gas when on fire.

This is a picture of the shop cleared out except I moved in my father-in-laws 4-wheeler, motorcycle and his trailer. He has been staying at the hospital for extended periods for chemo treatments for APL Leukemia treatments and didn't want the motorcycle or 4-wheeler to disappear from his front porch.

If you noticed by the 4-wheeler there is a plug in the purlin, that is the existing 220V 50A plug in the shop. I am replacing it because the shop builder screwed it to the purlin and now the cover wont stay on so you can't make good contact plugging it in. Plus I don't like plugs facing up EVER, so I am installing boxes with water tight covers throughout.

- By fire extinguisher on floor they didn't put trim around the floor to anchor the tin too. So I'm using the 4x2" rake and base angle to secure it down. Need to trim the 20ft joint to fit and then secure everything.

- Also by the fire extinguisher you can see the bent pieces made so far to mount the outlet boxes UNDER the c-purlin instead of to the top. Been using a person standing on one end and bending it with a hammer over angle iron at the corner of the shop slab since don't have a vise or table yet.

- Have to cut off the 120V outlets (you can see them by my wire and nozzle gel) the guy had welded to the c-purlin tops. Will be mounting them all underneath the c-purlin.

- The yellow dolly I will be making into a cart for oxy/acet tanks for my new Victor Journeyman Torch set.

- Will need to get a extension cord reel and an air hose reel to suspend from the ceiling.

- Mount new leads on Airco Easy Arc 250 AC/DC stick welder.

- Fix capacitor on circuit board on Airco welder.

After all of that I will be wanting to build a welding table so I can have a place for a vice and I won't have to use my miller box and the back of the 4-wheeler as table space.

It just seems like the c-purlin does make a nice storage space, but like you said if I do insulate I will need something to cover it all to keep it clean. So I could maybe make extend shelfs off the c-purlin using angle iron or channel iron to secure it to the floor with base plates to carry the weight since the c-purlin can't take to much on the ends without flexing.

Where I'm at, south of lake Michigan for the winter I have to bring in all welding wire, sanding discs, grinding wheels, electric tools and all hand tools that are not chrome plated. Then with a 3" paint brush and motor oil I paint a light coat of oil on my drill presses' and mill's tables and their columns. I also have to oil the top of the welding table. The plasma machine , MM180, MM172 also spend the winter down in my pretty dry basement. The one winter I didn't oil things it took me a half a day to clean the rust off everything. A few years back I got lazy and left the machines out all winter....The MM180 still had a roll of wire in it, come spring I had to spend at least 50 feet of welding wire until I got to clean wire. The corrosion on the welding wire was not noticeable by sight, but it was there, it showed up when the MM180 wouldn't feed wire, it's drive wheels had brown dust on them. Cleaned the wheels and the liner and it worked like a Miller again.

Clint,
Others may have different/better ideas but I would bolt an angle to the floor with Hilti bolts to support the bottom of the wall covering. Maybe 2 x 2 and not super heavy cause you will want to drive self-tapping screws to hold on the wall cover. Remember you will have to drill for the screws just above the floor so choose a verticle flange width that will give you room to do that. At the top of the wall you will need a similar support from what I can see in the pictures. If I see what I think I see at the top of the wall turn the horizontal flange out to get an attachment point for the ceiling. If the top parts are too close to the existing exterior tin to weld without damaging the finish on the tin you may want to make brackets to hold the tops that bolts to the channels or vertcal corner posts. I would use roofing tin and screw it in the flats close beside the ridges so the screw heads are less likely to snag if you rub up against the wall. Galvanized is cheaper but the reflected uv from your welding is going to burn you or others in the shop--so painted as dark as possible and flat black is better than glossy. Heat resistant is available in flat black or was anyway(I'm saying repaint with flat black, it drives psychiatrists crazy). You will need vertical angles in the corners as well to catch the edge of the wall covering. You would be safe enough using the roofing wall cover as a vapor barrier if you caulk the lap joints and the top and bottom of the sheets. Fiberglass batts should be good insulation and I think they are considered fireproof but you might want to check with the manufacturer.
If you plan to attach anything to the wall in the future you need to plan for it now and install supports in the wall before it is closed. Otherwise you will be limited to the existing supports or you'll have to make interior(to the room) supports to attach to the existing ones and whatever you are going to hang or make things that free stand on the floor.
Before you buy , build or install anything have a long sit down with yourself and try to envision everything you plan to do and store in this space. Take the measurements of the room and whatever you plan on putting in there and see how it fits(no matter how big it is you're going to need a bigger building). Simple drafting programs are sufficient for this or a low tech way is a scale drawing on a piece of bristol board and scaled cardboard cutouts of your stuff(lots easier to move around than the real thing). Don't forget to leave lots of room for you to move around in there. I also like to take high resolution pictures of spaces I am going to enclose with a 1" tape measure stretched across the photo both horizontally and vertcally before I cover anything up so I can see where I put stuff after it's closed. Stuff like supports and wiring. I'd hate to drive a screw though the wiring. I know, can you spell OCD.
Have fun with it but plan carefully first, it saves alot of frustration later.
Meltedmetal